Is Dubai the new Japan?

When you visualize Japan, what do you see? Do you think of anime, cosplay culture, manga, vocaloid, and femboys? Maybe you think of the aesthetic Cherry Blossom trees and and kimonos. You might watch a Japanese drama and think "All I want is a tall, hot Japanese Senpai!~" What I'm sure you don't think about is the $24 billion sex industry, the pornography industry alone being about a $960 million market. How do you think Japan sustains that?

Many Japanese women and foreign women are sex trafficked and trapped in prostitution. Sex trafficking is linked to Japan's entertainment industry. Traffickers use internet websites, emails, apps, and other things to blackmail women. Women are constantly in fear of "chikan" also known as groping on trains. According to the National Police Agency, in 2024 the number of reported sexual assault and rape cases rose by 45.2%. In Japan, victims of sexual assault that fight back must prove that the attack was illegal, they were in immediate danger, their response was proportionate, and they did not provoke or continue the attack after the threat has passed. How are you supposed to prove these things? Are women really supposed to regulate themselves after being assaulted?

Manga became widely popular in Japan during the 1950s and 1960s. Anime started to become popular in Japan in the 1960s and 1980s with the success of Dragon Ball and Astro Boy. The term cosplay was coined in 1984, and Vocaloid boomed with the introduction of Hatsune Miku in 2007.

And just like that, Japan's aggressive history with WWII and Pearl Harbor started to become less and less relevant. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad all of these things helped Japan's image. In fact, we should all grow as people and countries should as well. Obviously, Japan isn't the same country it was in the 1940s.

But with just the invention of a couple cool trends, people started to overlook the atrocities of Japan, some of which are still happening today.

And now, Dubai has a trend up their sleeve too. Dubai chocolate. Heard of it? Dubai chocolate started trending sometime between 2022 and 2023 and ever since then it's been a bit hit, at least on Tiktok. There was a time you couldn't escape it. "Have you tried Dubai Chocolate?" Dubai ice cream, Dubai cookies, etc. Dubai chocolate is actually just a chocolate bar filled with toasted kataifi, pistachio cream, and tahini. Pistachio chocolate has actually been around since at least 1933 made from pistachios in Turkey. If you ask anyone from the Middle East, people have been eating the global sensation before it became a Tiktok trend known as "Dubai Chocolate."

Now, people, especially women, are planning their dream vacations to Dubai without even knowing what really goes on there. According to the Walk Free Global Slavery Index, about 132,000 individuals live in modern day slavery in Dubai. Dubai is globally ranked the 7th highest on the Global Slavery Index. In 2020, the majority of people seeking help for domestic violence, human trafficking, and other abuses in Dubai were migrant women. Male guardianship laws require female adults to obtain permission from a male guardian to consent to their marriage.

Dubai is making an effort to address these issues, but I think it's important for people, women especially, to be aware of what happens in other countries rather than being blinded by mere trends.

So the next time a trend from any country seems random and people start glorifying it, make sure to do your own research before planning a vacation.